Dust off your video cameras, call your boom guy, bring in the best boy and cast your comrades–we want you, filmmakers of North America, to direct our next music video as part of our first ever Music Video Contest! We invite our fans to create a clever, inspired music video for the band for one of six songs from the new CD Splendor in the Grass: “Ninna nanna,” “Ohayoo Ohio,” “Splendor in the Grass,” “Ou est ma tete?,” “And Then You’re Gone,” or “Over the Valley.”

First, Second and Third place winners will receive the following prizes:
First Prize: Two round trip plane tickets to Nice, France (from a major North American airport), three nights for two at a hotel, and two tickets to see Pink Martini perform at the Nice Jazz Festival on July 24, 2010. In addition, the winner will receive 500 euros cash, and a package of special Pink Martini paraphernalia. Instead of above first prize, winner may, alternately, choose a $2500 cash prize.

Second Prize: Two tickets to any Pink Martini show in the US or Canada in 2010, $250 cash, and a package of Pink Martini paraphernalia.

Third Prize: Two tickets to any Pink Martini show in the US or Canada in 2010, and a package of Pink Martini paraphernalia.

The video should include the complete song for whichever song you choose. Lyrics for the songs are available here; songs can be streamed here. Please do not include violent images in the videos.
You must be a resident of the United States, Canada or Mexico to enter this contest. Contest deadline is May 31, 2010.

For a complete list of contest rules and information please visit
http://pinkmartini.com/video-contest/north-america/.

The Orchestra returns to Tokyo in a four-concert Residency at Suntory Hall

Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leads four programs in Japan and South Korea

Mitsuko Uchida is pianist and conductor for Mozart programs and featured soloist in Beethoven program in Japan

Tour includes first Cleveland Orchestra appearances at Kitara Concert Hall in Sapporo and Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Nishinomiya, Japan, and at Goyang Arts Center and Seoul Arts Center in South Korea

CLEVELAND, March 15, 2010 – Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra will embark on their tenth international tour together this fall, performing in Japan and South Korea. Pianist Mitsuko Uchida will join the Orchestra in Japan. The eight-concert, four-city tour begins with a performance in Sapporo, Japan, on November 10 and ends with a program at the Seoul Arts Center in South Korea on November 21. The centerpiece of the tour is a Cleveland Orchestra Residency at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, with four concerts at the acclaimed venue.

Pianist Mitsuko Uchida will conduct from the keyboard in all-Mozart programs at Kitara Concert Hall in Sapporo (November 10), at Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Nishinomiya (November 12), and in concerts at Suntory Hall in Tokyo (November 14 and 16). Ms. Uchida will also be featured as soloist with Franz Welser-Möst conducting an all-Beethoven program consisting of the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Opus 58, and the Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) in E-flat major, Opus 55, at Suntory Hall on November 18.

Franz Welser-Möst will conduct a second program at Suntory Hall consisting of Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Takemitsu’s Dream/Window, and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major on November 17.

The tour concludes with Mr. Welser-Möst conducting two programs in South Korea. On Saturday, November 20, he leads Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun; Divertimento in D major, K. 136; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) at the Goyang Arts Center. On Sunday, November 21, Mr. Welser-Möst conducts Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major and two works excerpted from Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes – the Four Sea Interludes and the Passacaglia – at the Seoul Arts Center.

The Cleveland Orchestra in Asia

The Orchestra first performed in Japan in 1970 and most recently appeared there in 1998, during a tour of Japan and China. The Cleveland Orchestra performed in Seoul, South Korea, for the first time in 1970, and most recently appeared there in 1978.

TOUR FACTS AND HISTORY:
· Kitara Concert Hall: The Orchestra has previously played in Sapporo in 1970. This is the Orchestra’s first performance in Kitara Concert Hall.
· This will be the Orchestra’s first performance in the city of Nishinomiya, at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center.
· The Cleveland Orchestra has performed 12 times at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, including concerts for a Beethoven series with Christoph von Dohnányi, the Orchestra’s former Music Director, in 1993, during which Mitsuko Uchida appeared as piano soloist. The Orchestra most recently performed at the hall in 1998.
· The Orchestra has previously performed in Seoul in 1970 and 1978.
· This will be its first time performing at the Goyang Arts Center in Goyang, South Korea, which opened in 2004, and the Seoul Arts Center, in Seoul, which opened in 1988.

International tours of The Cleveland Orchestra are supported by the Frances Elizabeth Wilkinson International Touring Fund.

A Brief History of The Cleveland Orchestra
Under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, The Cleveland Orchestra has become one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world. In concerts at its winter home at Severance Hall and at each summer’s Blossom Festival, in residencies from Miami to Vienna, and on tour around the world, The Cleveland Orchestra sets standards of artistic excellence, creative programming, and community engagement.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s educational programs, a cornerstone of the Orchestra’s original mission, have introduced nearly four million Cleveland-area schoolchildren to symphonic music since 1921. During the 2009-10 season, the Orchestra launched a Community Music Initiative that began with orchestral performances led by Franz Welser-Möst in Cleveland Metropolitan School District public schools. Designed to provide greater access to orchestral music for more of Northeast Ohio’s citizens than ever before, the Community Music Initiative introduces new programs throughout the year for students from preschool through high school. The season closes in June 2010 with a free retrospective concert celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer fellowships, featuring new works created through this ongoing program.

The partnership with Franz Welser-Möst, now in its eighth season, has earned The Cleveland Orchestra unprecedented residencies in the United States and in Europe, including one at the Musik­verein in Vienna – the first of its kind by an American orchestra. The Orchestra returned to Vienna during the 2009-10 season for its fourth Musikverein Residency as part of a nine-concert tour. The Orchestra regularly appears at European festivals, including an ongoing series of biennial residencies at the Lucerne Festival (featuring Roche Commissions, a project involving the Orchestra, the Festival, and Carnegie Hall). In the United States, Mr. Welser-Möst and the Orchestra have toured from coast to coast, including regular appearances at Carnegie Hall, and in January 2007 began an unprecedented long-term residency project in Miami, Florida, where they perform annually at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County and provide a wide array of community and educational activities. In addition, the 2009-10 season marks the announcement of a residency at New York’s Lincoln Center Festival that starts in 2011 and will feature The Cleveland Orchestra in Vienna State Opera productions.

The Cleveland Orchestra was founded in 1918 by a group of local citizens. It has been led by seven music directors (Nikolai Sokoloff 1918-33, Artur Rodzinski 1933-43, Erich Leinsdorf 1943-46, George Szell 1946-70, Lorin Maazel 1972-82, Christoph von Dohnányi 1984-2002, and Franz Welser-Möst 2002-present), and one musical advisor (Pierre Boulez 1970-72). Expansion to a year-round schedule was made possible in 1968 with the opening of Blossom Music Center, an outdoor facility in nearby Cuyahoga Falls that is home to the Orchestra’s Blossom Festival. Today, touring, residencies, radio broadcasts, and recordings available by internet download and on DVD and CD provide access to the Orchestra’s music-making to a broad and loyal constituency around the world.

For additional information, please visit clevelandorchestra.com.

Franz Welser-Möst

Music Director
Kelvin Smith Family Endowed Chair
The Cleveland Orchestra

Franz Welser-Möst is in his eighth year as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra. His long-term commitment extends to the Orchestra’s centennial in 2018. Under his direction, the Orchestra holds residencies in the United States and Europe, champions living composers, partners with Northeast Ohio public schools and conservatories, and has re-established itself as an operatic ensemble. Concurrently with his post in Cleveland, Mr. Welser-Möst becomes General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera in the autumn of 2010.

Under Mr. Welser-Möst’s leadership, The Cleveland Orchestra holds ongoing residencies at Vienna’s famed Musikverein hall and Switzerland’s Lucerne Festival, along with an annual Miami Residency. In 2011, Mr. Welser-Möst and the Orchestra launch a biennial residency at New York’s Lincoln Center Festival, which will feature The Cleveland Orchestra in Vienna State Opera productions.

Under Franz Welser-Möst, The Cleveland Orchestra has presented eleven world and fourteen United States premieres. In 2009, Mr. Welser-Möst led a Zurich Opera production of The Marriage of Figaro at Severance Hall. He and The Cleveland Orchestra continue the Mozart/Da Ponte operas in Cleveland with Mozart’s Così fan tutte in 2009-10 and Don Giovanni in 2010-11.

Recent and upcoming international engagements include a new production of Wagner’s Ring cycle with stage director Sven-Eric Bechtolf at the Vienna State Opera. During the 2009-10 season, Mr. Welser-Möst leads additional Ring performances, as well as Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Parsifal, with the Vienna State Opera. In the summer of 2009, Franz Welser-Möst appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, the BBC Proms, and the Lucerne Festival. He also conducted the Berlin Philharmonic at the 2009 Salzburg Easter Festival.

Following his 1989 American debut and prior to his appointment in Cleveland, Mr. Welser-Möst regularly guest-conducted the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia. Mr. Welser-Möst was music director of the London Philharmonic from 1990 to 1996. Across his decade-long tenure with the Zurich Opera, culminating in three seasons as General Music Director (2005-08), Mr. Welser-Möst led more than 40 new productions. In the spring of 2010, he leads Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten and Mozart’s Così fan tutte in Zurich.

Mr. Welser-Möst’s recordings and videos have won the Gramophone Award, Diapason d’Or, Japanese Record Academy Award, and two Grammy nominations. Mr. Welser-Möst has led The Cleveland Orchestra in video recordings of live performances of the Bruckner Symphonies Nos. 5, 7, and 9. Mr. Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra released a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on Deutsche Grammophon in 2007.

Mr. Welser-Möst has been recognized by the Western Law Center for Disability Rights and is an honorary member of the Vienna Singverein. Musical America named him the 2003 Conductor of the Year.

Mitsuko Uchida

Mitsuko Uchida’s interpretations of a wide range of repertoire have gained her a formidable reputation as a pianist who brings intellectual acuity and musical insight to her performances. She is particularly noted for her interpretations of Mozart and Schubert, both in the concert hall and on CD, but also has illuminated the music of Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, and Beethoven for a new generation of listeners.

Ms. Uchida made her Cleveland Orchestra debut in February 1990, and since that time has performed with the Orchestra at Severance Hall, at the Blossom Festival, and on tour to Europe and Japan. Between 2002 and 2007, she played and conducted from the keyboard an acclaimed series of Mozart piano concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra. Her most recent appearances with the Orchestra included performances of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 at Severance Hall and during the Orchestra’s fall 2009 European tour and Vienna Musikverein Residency.

Mitsuko Uchida’s latest recording with the Cleveland Orchestra features her conducting the ensemble from the keyboard in performances of the Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 23 (K.488) and 24 (K.491). The recording was a bestseller in the United Kingdom, ranked “Top Ten Exceptional Recordings of 2009” by New Yorker Magazine, and “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone Magazine.

Mitsuko Uchida performs throughout the world with many different partners. She was the focus of a Carnegie Hall “Perspectives” series titled Mitsuko Uchida: Vienna Revisited and took part in Mozart 250th birthday celebrations in Salzburg. She has been artist-in-residence at The Cleveland Orchestra as well as with the Berlin Philharmonic, with the Konzerthaus Vienna, and at Salzburg Mozartwoche.

Mitsuko Uchida records exclusively for Decca. In April 2008, BBC Music Magazine presented its Instrumentalist of the Year and Disc of the Year awards to Ms. Uchida. Her recording of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and The Cleveland Orchestra won four awards in 2001, including one from Gramophone for best concerto recording.

Mitsuko Uchida has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to aiding the development of young musicians and is a trustee of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust. She is also co-director, with Richard Goode, of the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.

Music Director Franz Welser-Möst opens the season with a public-school performance for the second consecutive year

National and international appearances include annual Miami Residency in its fifth season, new Tokyo Residency, and first academic residency at Indiana University

CLEVELAND, March 15, 2010 – The Cleveland Orchestra has announced its 2010-11 season. Under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra continues its local programming diversification with numerous initiatives to attract new audiences and support. Within a full schedule of traditional subscription concerts, the season will feature the new series introduced in 2009 including Fridays@7, Musically Speaking, and the Celebrity Series, alongside fully staged opera. Also in the coming season, the Orchestra will inaugurate a two week Baroque Festival in Severance Hall.

Orchestra performances in public schools are an important part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s history. Franz Welser-Möst restored that tradition in the 2009-10 season when he conducted the Orchestra in two high schools in Cleveland and one in Miami. Hundreds of students who had never heard live orchestral music before were able to experience it for the first time. The Orchestra’s traditional Education Concerts at Severance Hall for more than 16,000 students annually will continue, as well as the Cleveland Orchestra Family Concert series.

The innovative variety of concert programs and formats presents audiences in Northeast Ohio with multiple ways to partake of symphonic music. Fridays@7 offers a social experience, Musically Speaking brings new audiences and long-time fans closer to the music, and the Celebrity Series spotlights different genres of music.

Music Director Franz Welser-Möst’s ProgrammingFranz Welser-Möst opens his ninth season with The Cleveland Orchestra with a program including Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, in two subscription concerts at Severance Hall and at a Cleveland Metropolitan School District high school. Also during the 2010-11 season, Mr. Welser-Möst will conduct John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony; Bach’s Mass in F major (BWV 233); Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta; Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Pierre-Laurent Aimard; Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 8; Dvořák’s Te Deum, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4; a fully staged production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni; Rossini’s Stabat Mater; and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, among 39 performances at Severance Hall, the Miami Residency, and on tour. Mr. Welser-Möst will lead the fifth Roche Commission, an American premiere of Woven Dreams, by Toshio Hosokawa, in January. At the end of the season, Mr. Welser-Möst conducts the world premiere of Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow Jörg Widmann’s Flute Concerto and the Cleveland Orchestra premiere of On a Wire, a concerto for eighth blackbird by Jennifer Higdon that is a co-commission by six orchestras.

Franz Welser-Möst will conduct Bruckner Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 in the 2010-11 season. He has led the Orchestra in three DVD productions of Bruckner symphonies in three historic venues – the Abbey of St. Florian in Linz, Austria, the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria, and in Cleveland at Severance Hall – which have been telecast in Europe and the United States. In 2011, during the Orchestra’s residency at the Lincoln Center Festival, Mr. Welser-Möst will conduct four Bruckner symphonies. Mr. Welser-Möst is a native of Linz, Austria, where Bruckner spent the formative years of his career.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni
The Mozart/Da Ponte cycle of operas fully staged at Severance Hall concludes as Franz Welser-Möst conducts Don Giovanni on March 19, 22, 24, and 27, 2011. The production of Don Giovanni will be based on the Zurich Opera production directed by Sven-Eric Bechtolf. The Orchestra’s three-season cycle of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas began in 2009, with four performances of Le nozze di Figaro. The same number of performances of Così fan tutte were presented in March 2010.

Baritone Simon Keenlyside will perform the title role of Don Giovanni, in his first performances of the role in the United States. “He can switch from genteel seductiveness to physical threat in a moment, registering all the gradations in his wonderfully vital and well-focused singing,” wrote the Guardian of London, reviewing a performance by Mr. Keenlyside in Don Giovanni at Covent Garden. In a review of a 2008 production at the Royal Opera House, the Guardian described Mr. Keenlyside as “a tour de force.” Mr. Keenlyside most recently appeared with the Orchestra during a Cleveland Orchestra Musikverein Residency in Vienna in the fall of 2009.

Orchestra’s Baroque Festival Features Artist-in-Residence Ton KoopmanTon Koopman will lead a two-week Baroque Festival with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall in April and May, including works by J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, and Handel. Mr. Koopman will become the Orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence with the 2010-11 season. He is the founder and conductor of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, artistic director of the French Festival “Itinéraire Baroque,” Professor at the University of Leiden, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was named as Artist-in-Residence for The Cleveland Orchestra in June 2008, following his debut with the Orchestra in February 2008. The three-year Artist-in-Residence position is supported by the Malcolm E. Kenney Artist-in-Residence Fund. Jörg Widmann, Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer FellowFranz Welser-Möst will conduct the world premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Flute Concerto, featuring Cleveland Orchestra Principal Flute Joshua Smith, at Severance Hall in May 2011. German composer Jörg Widmann is the Orchestra’s sixth Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow. In his second season with the Orchestra, Mr. Widmann will continue to participate in rehearsals, masterclasses, and educational activities.Mr. Widmann is a winner of the Claudio Abbado Composition Award of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Academy, and most recently the winner of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Elise L. Stoeger Prize. The Flute Concerto was commissioned by The Cleveland Orchestra through the Young Composers Fund, established in 1997 by a $1 million gift from Jan R. and Daniel R. Lewis, who reside in Florida. Mr. Lewis is the Chair of the Musical Arts Association of Miami. Conductor and Soloist DebutsGuest conductors making their Cleveland Orchestra debuts in 2010-11 are Jiří Bĕlohlávek, Andrey Boreyko, Thomas Dausgaard, and Vladimir Jurowski. Other artists debuting this season are tenor Shawn Mathey, baritone Reinhard Mayr, soprano Eva Mei, bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, soprano Jessica Rivera, and the ensemble eighth blackbird. Mitsuko Uchida appears this season with the Orchestra in Japan, and will perform a solo recital at Severance Hall in February. Violinist Julia Fischer, cellist Alban Gerhardt, and pianists David Fray and Kirill Gerstein will mark their Severance Hall debuts – they have performed with the Orchestra in prior seasons at Blossom Music Center.

Miami Residency
The Cleveland Orchestra’s annual Miami Residency continues in its fifth season at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County. The Orchestra’s Miami Residency includes a series of subscription concerts at the Adrienne Arsht Center as well as education and family concerts, and a broad spectrum of music education and outreach activities in the Miami-Dade community.

In 2010, Cleveland Orchestra collaborations include New World Symphony fellows and the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music students, with masterclasses led by members of The Cleveland Orchestra, reading sessions of new music, access to Cleveland Orchestra working rehearsals, and an upcoming event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. In partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the Orchestra continues to provide Education Concerts for fifth-grade students, Musical Rainbows for younger school children, and high-school coachings for older students, plus a Cleveland Orchestra Family Concert.

The Orchestra’s residency activities in Miami are conceived and made possible with the leadership of the Musical Arts Association of Miami, the Miami-based board governing the Orchestra’s Miami Residency.Details of The Cleveland Orchestra 2011 Miami Residency will be announced at a later date.

Tokyo Residency and Asian Tour
Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra will embark on their tenth international tour together this fall, performing in Japan and South Korea. Mitsuko Uchida will join the Orchestra in Japan. The eight-concert, four-city tour begins with a performance in Sapporo, Japan, on November 10 and ends with a program at the Seoul Arts Center in South Korea on November 21. The centerpiece of the tour is a Cleveland Orchestra Residency at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, with four concerts at the acclaimed venue. More tour details are available in a separate release.

Indiana University Residency
In January 2011, The Cleveland Orchestra will participate in an intensive residency at Indiana University. The IU Jacobs School of Music and IU Auditorium have partnered to present a concert during IU Auditorium’s season of events and to broaden the orchestra’s visit to bring additional learning opportunities to students on campus and in the community. The IU Residency will include masterclasses, coachings, arts administration seminars, and other community and educational activities. Plans call for every principal musician in The Cleveland Orchestra to teach a class for IU students; students will also have an opportunity to take part in side-by-side rehearsals with The Cleveland Orchestra.

Carnegie Hall and United States Tour
The Orchestra will tour in February to Hill Auditorium, on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, on February 1, and to Symphony Center in Chicago on February 2. The Orchestra will appear in two programs at Carnegie Hall in New York, on February 4 and 5. At the end of the tour, the Orchestra performs at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on February 6. Franz Welser-Möst will lead all performances, and Pierre-Laurent Aimard will appear as soloist in four of the five programs on the tour.

Alternate Concert Formats Welcome Audiences Seeking New and Different Experiences

The Fridays@7 concert series continues with five programs in 2010-11, following its success in attracting new audiences in 2009-10. More than 800 new ticket buyers have attended the new series thus far in the 2009-10 season. The format is an hour-long Orchestra concert at the early start time, followed by entertaining and diverse styles of world music featuring international musicians, along with food and drink in a casual atmosphere. In the 2010-11 season, Franz Welser-Möst, Pinchas Steinberg, and Jiří Bĕlohlávek will conduct concerts in the Fridays@7 series.

As part of the popular Musically Speaking series, an HD presentation of Holst’s The Planets will feature breathtaking NASA images projected on a giant screen during the performance. The complete work includes Women of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus. The series also includes a Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Beyond the Score® program of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 and a full performance of baroque and classical works led by Ton Koopman, featuring cellist Steven Isserlis, with a preview discussion prior to the performance.

The Celebrity Series will continue in 2010-11, spotlighting diverse artists and repertoire, embracing many genres. Guest artists and repertoire for the series will be announced in August. More people will attend the Celebrity Series per concert than any other series offered by the Orchestra in 2009-10.

Subscription and Ticket Information

A variety of subscription options will be available for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday concerts. Subscriptions will go on sale March 22. Tickets to individual performances go on sale in August. For more information, call the Ticket Office at (216) 231-1111 or (800) 686-1141 or visit us online at www.clevelandorchestra.com.

The Severance Hall Ticket Office and Subscription Office are located on street level in the Smith Lobby. The entrance and 15-minute Ticket Service parking are along the west side of the building, on East Boulevard. Severance Hall Ticket Office hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (closed Sundays and holidays except for those days with performances, when the Ticket Office will be open three hours prior to each performance). Severance Hall Subscription Office Hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

New Centrediscs CD: 3 Concerti Just Released

PIANIST CHRISTINA PETROWSKA QUILICO PLAYS

CONCERTI BY THREE CANADIAN WOMEN COMPOSERS

Pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico, long a champion of the music of contemporary composers, particularly those of her native Canada, performs works by three Canadian women composers for piano and orchestra, in 3 Concerti, a new Centrediscs release from the Canadian Music Centre.

The new CD (CMCCD 15610) features compositions by Alexina Louie, Larysa Kuzmenko and Violet Archer (1913-2000). They were recorded for broadcast by CBC Radio over the past two decades.

CDs can be ordered through the Canadian Music Centre, www.musiccentre.ca or via www.petrowskaquilico.com.

The 3 Concerti project came as result of the Gender and Performance graduate course that Petrowska Quilico teaches at Toronto’s York University. “I wanted the students to hear the brilliance of Canadian women composers, especially in live performance,” she said. “Thanks to CBC producer David Jaeger, I had recordings of several concerts in which I had premiered women’s concerti. From those recordings we chose works that are very different in their compositional styles, yet in which each features a virtuoso piano part.”

Since playing her first concerto – Haydn’s D Major – at age 10, Christina Petrowska Quilico has performed an impressive range of repertoire for piano and orchestra, from Bach and Beethoven to Bartok, Gershwin, and Canadians Glenn Buhr, the three women on the new CD, and more.

The Canadian Music Centre and the Canadian League of Composers honored Petrowska Quilico with The 2007 Friends of Canadian Music Award. A national jury recognized her “for her dedication to Canadian contemporary classical music as well as her unwavering support of this country’s composing community. Throughout her exceptional performing and recording career, Christina Petrowska Quilico has had a profound impact on Canada’s classical music community from coast to coast.” She was also among Canadian artists honored by the CMC on its 50th anniversary in November 2009 at the National Arts Centre, and performed Glass Houses by Ann Southam at the special concert celebrating the occasion.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM OF THE FEATURED CONCERTI AND PERFORMANCES:

Violet Archer Concerto:

In his essay on Violet Archer for the book Contemporary Canadian Composers (Oxford University Press), critic Kenneth Winters calls the Archer concerto, “a masterpiece and a genuine concerto in terms of display and dynamics.” He refers to the “ease and virtuosity” of both piano and orchestra in the “propulsive opening movement,” the “pensive and lyrical” middle movement, and the “vigorous” finale, which “leaves the listener mildly appalled that a work of this calibre should be played so seldom.”

Larysa Kuzmenko Concerto:

The concerto, a CBC commission, drew standing ovations when Petrowska Quilico performed it with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and conductor Bramwell Tovey at the Winnipeg New Music Festival, and again with the Toronto Symphony under Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Elissa Poole wrote in the Globe and Mail of the “classically virtuoso performance by soloist Christina Petrowska Quilico. Kuzmenko returned to the grandiose gestures of the romantic piano concerto.” The Toronto Star’s William Littler described the concerto’s “broad, sweeping gestures and strong melodic profile of a concerto in the romantic tradition. With the considerable help of its soloist, the nimble-fingered Christina Petrowska Quilico, it was the undoubted hit of the evening.”

Alexina Louie Concerto:

Petrowska Quilico twice performed this work with Alex Pauk conducting – first with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and again with the Esprit Orchestra. William Littler of the Toronto Star noted “that able champion of the contemporary keyboard literature, Christina Petrowska Quilico, applied the proverbial hammer and tongs to a piano part full of cluster chords, glissandos and runs, surrounded by enough orchestral goings-on in rapidly changing metres to keep conductor Alex Pauk working overtime…. The concerto in its deliberately big-boned, splashily and often exotically (complete with lion’s roar and Chinese gongs) scored...it has life, color and drama enough to keep the ear wondering what is going to happen next.”

The Globe and Mail’s Robert Everett-Green called it, “a large-scale exercise in grand-manner composition, a piece that nearly bursts the bounds of the chamber-sized orchestra for which it was written,” while reflecting the composer’s “project of bringing into the mainstream of progressive music the sounds of her Chinese heritage…. The pianist, Christina Petrowska Quilico, gave a committed reading of the virtuoso solo part, which makes some fairly athletic demands of the performer.”

La SCENA Spring 2010 - La Scena Musicale April 2010 Issue

La SCENA is pleased to feature on its Spring 2010 cover the musical comedy staging of Belles-Sœurs by Daniel Bélanger and René Richard Cyr, based on the theatrical classic by Michel Tremblay. The Arthur LeBlanc Quartet will be the feature of our April La Scena Musicale issue, which readers will find within the La SCENA. Paying subscribers will also receive an exclusive free CD of the Arthur LeBlanc Quartet's recordings of Shostakovich quartets.

Our jazz section will be featuring a sneak peak at the upcoming Miles Davis exhibit at the Musée des beaux-arts in Montreal. In our arts pages, readers will find La SCENA in conversation with Maurice Forget, Wajdi Mouawad, Gabor Szilasi, and many more.

To help plan your summer months, we will also be offering our annual international arts festivals guide. In La SCENA, you will also find a comprehensive arts calendar as well as detailed previews on all the dance, theatre, visual arts, and cinema events you won't want to miss.

There is much more in store for you this issue, including of course our monthly world music section, our musical events and concert calendars, and our reviews.
The deadline for advertising for this issue is March 26 with artwork due on March 29.

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MARCH Subscription SaleMarch Subscription Sale - Why not consider a subscription?
Until March 31, 2010, new subscribers will get $10-$15 off an LSM subscription if they subscribe online. This savings is equivalent to receiving 4 free issues, and the subscription include benefits such as the Naxos Music Library (39,000 CDs streaming) and free MP3 downloads of the Discovery CD Collection (10 full CDs). Note: New for 2010, only paying subscribers will receive the physical Discovery CD.http://scena.org/LaSCENACard/index_en.html

Already receive the magazine? We recommend the new environment-friendly La SCENA Green Card for only $25/year. Also ideal for non-Canadian readers.

NEW Endowment Fund:
Our application for the matching program, Placement Culture, has formally been accepted: for every dollar donated to LSM/TMS, the Québec government will contribute one dollar and fifty cents. Placement Culture is designed to create endowment funds for charitable arts groups like La Scene Musicale/The Music Scene. Our goal is to raise $100,000 until November 30, 2010, which combined with the government contribution, will create a $250,000 endowment. This will help us continue our magazines's excellence and innovation for years to come. We are therefore launching at this time our 2010 endowment fund campaign. Please join our fundraising committee or make a donation.

La Scena Musicale/The Music Scene is a registered charity promoting music and the arts through three magazines and a website. We connect musicians/artists, the arts community and music/art lovers together through education and information. Help us continue our work with a donation (cash or goods) or by volunteering.

The First Chicago Early Music Festival

CHICAGO EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL

April 20 – 25, 2010

Inaugural six-day celebration of music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras

at multiple Chicago music venues

The Chicago Early Music Festival debuts as the City’s first festival celebrating music of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras.The six-day festival, presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Chicago Office of Tourism, represents an unprecedented collaboration amongst the City of Chicago and some of Chicago’s leading ensembles and organizations, including Chicago Opera Theater, University of Chicago Presents, Baroque Band, International Music Foundation, and the Newberry Consort.

The Chicago Early Music Festival features free and ticketed performances, workshops, and master classes by internationally renowned musicians in venues throughout the city.

“Chicago ensembles have been presenting Early Music for some time, but this exciting new festival takes it to a new level, showcasing our city’s Early Music community and bringing in top international performers,” said Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg.“We hope that residents and tourists alike will enjoy this historic and truly wonderful music.”

The Chicago Early Music Festival will present music spanning five centuries- from the 14th until the mid-18th century.Early Music is a term commonly used to describe Western classical music before the time of Mozart, encompassing Medieval chant, the late Baroque masterworks of Handel and Bach, and everything in between.Pioneers like Wanda Landowska and Arnold Dolmetsch paved the way for a resurgence of interest in Early Music in the mid-20th century, with the rediscovery of historical instruments and long-lost techniques of playing them. Now, sixty years later, Early Music has finally entered the musical mainstream, with ensembles all over the world playing and singing this music.

A self-styled modern Pied Piper, British recorder virtuoso Piers Adams performs music spanning four centuries with duo-partner, harpsichordist Howard Beach.The incredibly diverse program includes renaissance selections by Bassano and Van Eyck, tracing the development of the sonata through Castello, Corelli, and J.S. Bach before arriving at the 19th century with a set of variations by Ernst Kraehmer.

Being Dufay

Tuesday, April 20, 7:30 pm

Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall, 78 E. Washington St

Admission: Free

The hauntingly beautiful Being Dufay combines early music with some of today’s most cutting-edge digital techniques in a lush, harmonic sound world. Sound artist Ambrose Field realizes his own score, a mesmerizing series of electronic soundscapes, with former Hilliard Ensemble tenor John Potter’s expressive rendition of vocal fragments by 15th century composer Guillaume Dufay.

Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall, 78 E. Washington St

Admission: Free

Embark on a journey through 18th century Italy, Germany, and France with violinist Brandi Berry, cellist Anna Steinhoff, and harpsichordist Jason Moy, in this program of violin sonatas by Arcangelo Corelli and J.S. Bach, and an exquisite but rarely-heard chaconne of Jacques Morel.Dame Myra Hess Concerts are a celebrated series of weekly concerts featuring solo and ensemble classical music performed by young musicians. Produced by the International Music Foundation and supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the concerts are broadcast live on WFMT (98.7 FM).

Baroque Band: Vivaldi’s L’Estro Armonico

Wednesday, April 21, 7:30 pm

St. James Cathedral, 65 E. Huron St

Admission: $35; seniors $30; students $15at 312.235.2368

Chicago’s period instrument orchestra, Baroque Band, presents Vivaldi’s L’Estro Armonico (The Harmonic Inspiration) in the exquisite sanctuary of St. James Cathedral.Violinist Garry Clarke leads the ensemble in scintillating performances of eight concerti from Vivaldi’s popular and influential collection that features solo cello, and at times, up to four solo violins.

Ensemble Lipzodes presents a program inspired by the relationship between Shakespeare and the Bassano family, and their trip to Venice together at the end of 1593.Famous as performers and instrument makers for the royal courts and churches of English and Italy, the Bassanos are thought to have invented the dulcian family of instruments featured in this concert. The program includes sonnets about the Emilia Bassano, the “Dark Lady”, and quotations from The Merchant of Venice inspired by the Bassano family.

Mitzi Meyerson, harpsichord

Thursday, April 22, 7:30 pm

Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall, 78 E. Washington St

Admission: Free

Harpsichordist and fortepianist Mitzi Meyerson returns to her native Chicago to present a recital of solo harpsichord music.Meyerson is one of the world’s most highly regarded early keyboard specialists, with over 50 internationally-acclaimed recordings; a busy teaching schedule at the esteemed Universität der Künste in Berlin, where she is Professor of Harpsichord; and numerous concert engagements both as a solo artist and with her ensemble, The Bottom Line, which is dedicated to the performance of repertoire for bass and continuo instruments.

Baroque dancer Paige Whitley-Bauguess interprets, recreates, and performs baroque theatre dance in venues all over the world.She is accompanied in this performance by the Bach and Beethoven Ensemble, one of Chicago’s newest, rising-star period instrument ensembles founded by violinist Brandi Berry and oboist Curtis Foster.

Liber Ensemble: Crowned with Laurels presented by University of Chicago Presents

Friday, April 23, 7:30 pm

Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave

Admission: $32; $5 students with valid ID at 773.702.8068

Founded in 1996, vocal ensemble Liber (formerly Liber unUsualis) has soared to prominence for its warm, compelling, and assured performances of medieval and early-renaissance music. The ensemble's mastery of medieval vocal technique and inventive programming have drawn enthusiastic audiences throughout the United States and Europe. This 4-voice program explores the extraordinary repertoire of 14th century Italy and France in settings of poetry by Petrarch, Sacchetti, Boccaccio, and others.

Fair Orianna: Early Movie with Early Music presented by The Newberry Consort

Saturday,April 24, 12 pm

Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave

Admission: $25 at 312.255.3610

Sarah Bernhardt’s 1912 silent movie, Elizabeth I, is accompanied by music performed by The Newberry Consort, one of the Chicago area’s longest running and most successful early music ensembles.Soprano Ellen Hargis joins the ensemble of viols and violin in an original soundtrack of Elizabethan music compiled by the Consort’s director, David Douglass.

Admission: Free

A concert showcasing the next generation of early music stars including performers from NorthwesternUniversity, DePaulUniversity, Midwest Young Artists, and the Music Institute of Chicago.

Chicago Opera Theater: Giasone

Saturday, April 24, 7:30 pm

HarrisTheater, 205 E. Randolph St

Admission: $30 - $120 at 312.704.8414

Francesco Cavalli’s at-times bawdy adaptation of the myth of Jason and his Argonauts made Giasone one of the 17th century’s most popular operas.Led by critically acclaimed early music conductor and harpsichordist Christian Curnyn and the gifted young Australian director Justin Way, this production marks the premiere performance of Giasone by a professional opera company in Chicago.Giasone kicks off Chicago Opera Theater’s trilogy of Baroque operas exploring the tragic character of Jason’s wife, Medea, in its next three seasons

Sunday Salon Series: Fêtes Galantes

Trio Settecento

Sunday, April 25, 3 pm

Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall, 78 E. Washington St

Admission: Free

Period instrument ensemble Trio Settecento combines the virtuosic talents ofRachel Barton Pine (violin), John Mark Rozendaal (viola da gamba/‘cello), and David Schrader (harpsichord/organ)in "... some of the most refreshing, life-enhancing Baroque playing heard in years" (Chicago Tribune). Their French Baroque program includes festive music by Marais and Forqueray, virtuoso sonatas of Leclair and Rebel, one of Rameau’s Pieces de Clavecin en Concert, and a suite from Francois Couperin’s Concert Royaux.

By a Celestial Fountain: Music of William Byrd presented by The Newberry Consort

Sunday, April 25, 7 pm

The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, 126 E. Chestnut St

Admission: $25; students $5 at 312.255.3610

Presented by the Newberry Consort

The Newberry Consort’s viols and singers are joined by keyboardist David Schrader in music by the foremost Elizabethan composer, William Byrd. This concert honors the late musicologist, Howard Mayer Brown, whose scores and instruments were bequeathed to the Newberry Library, and includes his favorite works performed on instruments from his collection.

SCHEDULE OF WORKSHOPS & LECTURES

In addition to the events listed below, several of the concerts will be accompanied by a pre-concert lecture.Visit www.chicagoearlymusicfest.org for more information.

Come experience the intricacies of this popular 17th and 18th century art form in a class given by Baroque dance specialist Paige Whitley-Bauguess.The musicians of the Bach and Beethoven Ensemble provide the musical accompaniment.All are welcome, and no prior experience is necessary!

Harpsichordist Mitzi Meyerson, a Chicago native, is a world-renowned early keyboard specialist based in Germany, where she is Professor of Harpsichord and Fortepiano at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.

German-born violinist Nadja Zwiener is a frequent soloist and concertmaster with some of the leading orchestras and period instrument ensembles in Europe, like the English Concert, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Les Arts Florissants and others.